Peter Feldstein at the HRC this week

Peter Feldstein will be at the Harry Ransom Center, Austin, Texas, on April 16th to discuss his book, The Oxford Project. This project started in 1985, when Peter set up a shop on Augusta Street in Oxford, Iowa. He hung a sign that said he wanted to make free portraits of everyone in the town (population of 673). By the finish he'd photographed 670 of the residents. 20 years later, Peter went back and photographed the same people. The book records and displays the passing of time and how those people in that small town in middle America have changed over the years.

This is a fascinating collection of before and after photographs, along with revealing interviews, conducted by Stephen G. Bloom.

The lecture is at 7p.m. on Thursday April 16th, at the Harry Ransom Center in the Charles Nelson Prothro Theater. For those of you who can not attend their will be a live webcast.

In 1984, photographer Peter Feldstein set out to photograph every single resident of his town, Oxford, Iowa (pop. 676). He converted an abandoned storefront on Main Street into a makeshift studio and posted flyers inviting people to stop by. At first they trickled in slowly, but in the end, nearly all of Oxford stood before Feldstein's lens.

Twenty years later, Feldstein decided to do it again. He invited writer Stephen G. Bloom to join him, and together they went in search of the Oxford residents Feldstein originally shot in 1984. Some had moved. Most had stayed. Others had passed away. All were marked by the passage of time.

What emerges is a living portrait of Small Town, USA, told with the words and images of its residents—then and now—and textured by their own words. It tells the compelling story of one archetypal American community—its struggles, accomplishments, failures, and secrets—and how it has both changed and stayed the same over the course of the years.

Feldstein will do a reading from the book with a narrated slide presentation, followed by a question-and-answer discussion.

Seating is free, but limited.